Arrests of Terrorist Suspects in Zaytun’s Arbil

The Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) announced on January 5 that in downtown Arbil, a northern Iraqi city where the Zaytun Unit is stationed, several terrorist suspects were arrested after the American troops’ operation.

It was the first attack mounted by U.S. forces on Arbil’s insurgents.

According to the JCS, American soldiers attacked some buildings of Saladin University in downtown Arbil, 25 km from the Zaytun Unit’s post, at 6:00 a.m. on January 5 (Korean time) for an hour and rounded up several terrorist suspects.

In December last year, U.S. forces obtained information that a group of insurgents snuck into Arbil and have been closely watching their move. In the process, the forces found their hideout and made a raid.

The U.S. is reportedly interrogating the suspects to find out the size of the insurgents’ group and the purpose of their slipping into Arbil. Saladin, the largest university in the Kurdish North, was recently donated computers by the Zaytun Unit.

The JCS said that the Zaytun Unit is keeping its current security alert of “tension” out of the four-staged system against terrorism, which consists of “normalcy (green),” “tension (amber),” “threat (red),” “emergency (black),” from lowest to highest.

An official of the JCS added, “As backlash against the U.S. raid, insurgents are likely to retaliate. So the Zaytun Unit restricted soldiers’ activities outside the barracks except for necessary operations.”

Sang-Ho Yun ysh1005@donga.com